Critics have often declared that Perrault merely used the boy's name as a cover for his own, because it did not become an Academician to publish fairy tales, above all in prose. It may be noted that Perrault did not employ his usual publisher, Coignard, but went to Barbin. There might also have been a hope that little Perrault Darmancour, while shielding his father, 'fit parfaitement bien sa Cour en meme tems,' like _Le Petit Poucet_. Considering how Perrault's other works are forgotten, and how his Tales survive, and regarding his boy as partly their author, we may even apply to him the Moral of _Le Petit Poucet_. 'Quelquefois, cependant, c'est ce petit Marmot Qui fera le bonheur de toute la famille!' The dedication, signed P. Darmancour, is addressed to Mademoiselle, and contains very agreeable flattery of the sister of the future Regent[18]. These motives would, indeed, account for Perrault's use of his boy's name. But it had occurred to me, before discovering the similar opinion of M. Paul Lacroix, that P. Darmancour really was the author of the _Contes_, or at least a _collaborateur_[19]. The naivete, and popular traditional manner of their telling, recognised by all critics, and the cause of their popularity, was probably given by the little lad who, as Mlle. L'Heritier said, a year before the tales were published, 'a mis depuis peu les Contes sur le papier avec tant d'agrement.' The child, according to this theory, wrote out, by way of exercise, the stories as he heard them, not from _brodeuses_ in Society, but from his Nurse, or from old women on his father's estates. The evidence of Madame de Sevigne and of Mlle. L'Heritier, as well as the testimony of the _contes_ which ladies of rank instantly took to printing, shews how the stories were told in Society. Allegorical and other names were given to the characters, usually nameless in _Maerchen_. Historical circumstances were introduced, and references to actual events in the past. _Esprit_ raged assiduously through the narratives. Moreover the traditional tales were so confounded that Madame d'Aulnoy, in _Finette Cendron_, actually mixes _Cinderella_ with _Hop o' My Thumb_[20]. Contrast with these refinements, these superfluities, and incoherences, the brevity, directness, and simplicity of _Histoires et Contes du Tems passe_. They have the touch of an intelligent child, writing down what he has heard told in plain language by plain people. They exactly correspond, in this respect, to the Hindoo folk tales collected from the lips of Ayahs by Miss Maive Stokes, who was a child when her collection was published.